How do care types and individual differences contribute to emotion understanding skills of children under the care of social services?


Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Fen Edebiyat Fakültesi, Psikoloji Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2014

Öğrenci: DUYGU TAŞFİLİZ

Danışman: SİBEL KAZAK BERUMENT

Özet:

Early caregiving environment has a great influence on young children’s socio-emotional development. It has been found that young children who have been raised in institutional settings are at risk for deficits in their emotion understanding skills. Research findings also suggested that harmful effects of early care environment would continue into foster care or adoption (Pears & Fisher, 2005; Luke & Banerjee, 2012). Indeed, researchers have investigated developmental differences in individuals’ ability to understand emotions. The developmental changes are found as usually occurring between the second and the fifth year of life (Dunn & Cutting, 1999). Besides, temperamental characteristics are found to play a crucial role in emotion understanding in young children (Stifter, Cipriano, Conway & Kelleher, 2008). In Turkey, currently several different care types exist under the government’s child protection services. There is a gap in the literature about the effects of different care types on children’s emotion understanding and how these effects vary based on the different temperamental characteristics of children. Therefore, the present study explores emotion understanding abilities in 3 to 5 year olds by identifying the contribution of being raised in different settings which are low SES homes, institutions, care villages and child homes and the moderating role of temperament. There were core differences found in care types. Investigating emotion understanding development in children in early years can be expected to reveal important outcomes about later social functioning. The sample for this study includes children in care to reveal some practical outcomes on the issue.